The fluorescent lights of the office had always felt like they were sucking the soul out of Hang-So's eyes. It was another night of overtime, another few hours of grinding for a paycheck that never seemed like enough. Hang-So was a middle-aged man, a worker lost in the gears of a modern world that didn't care about his name.
He was hungry. That was his last thought as a normal citizen.
On the way to the food market, the air was suddenly pierced by the screech of tires. Hang-So turned around, his eyes widening as twin suns of white light blinded him. A truck was speeding down, much too fast to stop.
THUD.
The world went black.
...
Hang-So barged up.
His lungs burned as if he had swallowed fire. He reached out, expecting to feel the cold, wet asphalt of the street, but his fingers dug into dry straw and rough wooden floorboards instead. He felt his body, his hands moving frantically over his chest and arms.
'I... I'm alive? No, that can't be right. I remember the headlights. I remember the sound of my own bones snapping under that grill. That's how I died. I was a forty-year-old salaryman one second, and now...'
He looked down at his tiny, dirt-stained hands and the frail limbs of a child. His eyes widened as he felt the sheer lack of muscle on his frame.
'So, that's how I reincarnated. I'm in the body of a boy named Kealen now. I don't know how I know that name, but it's stuck in my head like a bad memory. I've gone from a dead-end job to a kid who looks like he hasn't eaten in a week.'
He looked around the shack, noticing the lack of electricity or anything modern.
'And of course, there's a System-like thing here that only I can see. It's hovering right in front of me, blinking like a cursed notification. It's just like those fantasy novels the younger guys at the office used to read.'
He stared as the dark, smoky screen finally stabilized.
[The Umbral Ledger: Initializing...]
[Host: Kealen (Soul: Hang-So)] [
Class: Shadow God] | [Subclass: Necromancer]
[Level: 1] [STR: 1] [DEX: 1] [CON: 1] [INT: 1] [WIS: 1] [CHA: 1]
[Armor Class: 1] [Initiative: 1] [Speed: 1 ft]
'Shadow God? Necromancer? Are you kidding me? Look at these stats. One point in everything. My Armor Class is one. My speed is... one foot? I'm literally a crippled child. I've seen snails move faster than this body.'
Despite the shock, the cold irritation that had kept him going through twenty years of corporate hell took over. He looked at his own shadow on the floor. It wasn't normal. It was deep, heavy, and seemed to vibrate against the floorboards.
'The modern world crushed me. Now this world thinks it can do the same by making me the weakest thing in existence. It's got a surprise coming. If I'm a Shadow God, I'm crawling out of this dirt—even if I can only move a foot at a time.'